About Blog Helping you win loyal friends through your communications. I’m an outstanding writer, speaker, and community builder who understands how to motivate people. Passionate about social change, I left a senior management position so I could help nonprofit organizations tell their stories in person, in writing, and through social media. Blog by Dennis Fischman.
Jeff, first article of yours I’ve read. Excellent stuff! I’m following Michelle as well and am floored at the potential. I’m starting right now to implement all your suggestions. I’ve not yet set up my website email, but hey, one bite at a time, right? I’m looking forward to making a contribution to the interwebs. At this moment, by site is a blank slate, but I have several posts written in Google Docs of which to choose from. Cheers!
Be Yourself. Part of being interesting is telling your story. Every person is unique, and your story is an important one. The important part of storytelling, however, is removing the superfluous details that make the story uninteresting. A great storyteller removes 99% of what really happens—the absorptive details—and leaves the interesting 1% for the reader.

And, if you’re interested in starting a blog, you probably have a ton of ideas for posts you want to write. However, I can say from experience that those ideas aren’t always there. Sometimes running a blog is harder than it seems. And it can be incredibly hard when you run out of ideas, especially when you’re writing about topics you’re passionate about.

I must say, its a great article and enjoyed a lot. There’s so much good information which can be followed and actioned. I was in similar situation before trying to make money online, but couldn’t quite make it. So started slowly and work on the content and SEO. After 4 months I made $2. After this, I was able to make around $50 a month from the same blog. And recently I sold that blog. It happened with me so guys you can make it happen as well. But, please remember if you are looking for big money quick then it is not for you.

Blogging has to be one of the lowest risk investments you can ever make in yourself and/or your business. For less than $100/year you can try it and if you find out it’s not for you, you can cancel at no charge to you. HostGator offers such plans that start as low as a few dollars per month and scale up from there depending on your needs. For most of you, the most basic of plans will work until your web traffic begins to grow considerably.
Yup. I have thought about this long and hard, especially since I have started to see a profit from this blog in such a short time. It’s because people don’t understand what it takes to start a profitable blog, because the internet world is filled with “8 minutes to a profitable blog” tutorials. (Unlike this free tutorial, which assures you it will take a decent amount of effort and walks you through the steps.)
If you put your nose to the grindstone — you can earn good money within a year, but the general rule of thumb is blogging is not the fast lane to making cash quickly. I’ve been blogging for nine years, but it took me five years to hit the six-figure mark. Bloggers like Sarah Titus have hit the six-figure mark within a year. Kristin Larsen started making $3,500 a month at the five-month mark. You can read their stories below:
The easiest PPC method to get started with is Google AdSense. However, in order to make any kind of decent money with display ads, you’ll need quite a bit of traffic. And by the time you get that much traffic, you’ll make more money going with an ad management company like Mediavine (minimum of 25,000 monthly impressions) or AdThrive (minimum of 100,000 monthly pageviews).
27. Sponsored/paid posts – Many blogs publish sponsored and paid posts. Sponsored posts are basically just posts about a specific brand, product or service. A company will pay you to publish an article about it. It’s similar with other paid posts as well. Your basically selling the spot for the article on your site. If you decide to take this route, you’ll want to build your traffic before you will get many offers.
Take good pictures. Some of the options below don’t require you to actually take the picture and sell the product, but for the ones that do, make sure you take a clear picture that makes your product stand out from the others. If you’re going to be taking a lot of pictures, set up a small “studio-like” area in your home with a backdrop and proper lighting to really make your pictures come across as professional. And of course, you’ll want a good camera too.
After you have your account created, you’ll be directed to a page where you need to select your hosting package. You can choose to pay for your hosting in a 12 month period, 24 month period, or a 36 month period — the longer the plan, the cheaper your price. Next, add your payment info and wait for an email confirmation of registration – this only takes a minute or two.

Yup. I have thought about this long and hard, especially since I have started to see a profit from this blog in such a short time. It’s because people don’t understand what it takes to start a profitable blog, because the internet world is filled with “8 minutes to a profitable blog” tutorials. (Unlike this free tutorial, which assures you it will take a decent amount of effort and walks you through the steps.)

There are thousands of blogs covering the same underlying topic. The only way your blog will grow is unique, valuable content. Content is still king in the digital world. You’ve got to have something of value to say or people just won’t listen. The most successful bloggers are considered experts in a given field, and they are paid well to share that expertise with their audience.
Hi. Thank you for your informative post. I’m still looking for the best (least expensive or free) value to use my own domain (not with wordpress.com or the like in the domain name). If you’ve included this information somewhere, I have missed it. I also didn’t see it on the comparison chart? I’m sure it’s probably there, but maybe worded differently…?

“The turning point for me came when I realized that of the 3-5x a week I was publishing it was the ones that were about small businesses and freelancing that really took off. I also really enjoyed writing that kind of content. So that was this pivotal moment of understanding if I want things to be shared and I want to be consistent, this is what the blog should be about.”

Thanks Donna for taking the time to write this excellent comment. I agree with you 100%. A blog can give you an income from offline sources and is a great way of diversifying into different areas, but again it also depends on the niche you find yourself in. I always say to people to not be too reliant on one source of traffic or one source of income, because they can vanish pretty quickly.

This step should come after defining your niche. Once you know who you’re targeting, you can get to work on finding out about all of the individual problems they’re having and pinpointing their top pain points. Why is this important? People read blogs, watch videos and buy products to solve the problems they’re having. You could simply blog about what you feel would be most popular and create products you feel would be most profitable, but having definitive proof on what your audience cares about the most is a much better way to ensure success.

Find Your Niche. You needn’t have a niche, but it helps. When learning how to be a blogger, it’s important to ask yourself what you’re passionate about. Running? Cooking? Being a parent? Have you found your passion? If so, whatever it is, write about that. If not, then you must first find your passion. (Note: We generally recommend that people don’t start a blog about minimalism or the paleo diet or any other heavily saturated topic. But what we really mean when we say this is: don’t create a blog about something unless you have a unique perspective. If you’ve embraced simple living and have a unique perspective, then by all means have at it.)

So let me start out by answering your first question: where does the income come from? I go into this in greater detail in my How to Make Money from a Blog post, but it sounds like you’ve got the idea. My main source of income is through ads, but I also earn money through my books and courses, affiliate commissions, my Etsy store, and occasionally sponsored posts.
Blogger allows its users to choose from various templates and then customize them. Users may also choose to create their own templates using CSS. The new design template, known as "Dynamic View", was introduced on 31 August 2011[19] with Dynamic Views being introduced on 27 September 2011.[20] It is built with AJAX, HTML5, and CSS3. The time for loading is 40 percent shorter than traditional templates, and allows user to present blog in seven different ways: classic, flipcard, magazine, mosaic, sidebar, snapshot, and timeslide. Readers still have the option to choose preferable views when the blog owner has set a default view.[21] Some of the widgets (e.g., Labels, Profile, Link List, Subscription Links, Followers and Blog Archive etc.) are available for Dynamic Views; other templates are chosen by the blogger.

Really excellent article. One suggestion or caution with Godaddy though…Godaddy has a product called WordPress Hosting. I signed up for it, and all was fine until I installed a plugin which had a special requirement that needed to be set up by the webhost. (something in the server side settings). I called Godaddy and they advised they can’t make those changes. Only on their individual hosting plans would that have been possible. This is a rare event, but worth keeping in mind. When you go for your own hosting you have more flexibility.

Linking to other websites is a great way to make friends and provide value to your readers. It shows that you know your stuff and are not afraid to mention the “competition”. However, every time I want to include a link, Yoast says: “you’re about to link to a website that’s ranking for the same keyword you want to, are you sure you want to do that?”
2. InboxDollars – InboxDollars is similar to Swagbucks, since you’re going to be taking surveys, shopping, etc., so if you want to maximize your return, sign up with both websites. They also offer a search engine that pays you (like Swagbucks) and you get $5 just for signing up. I won’t continue to list survey sites one after another down the list, but if you want to get paid to take surveys, also check out GlobalTestMarket, E-Poll Surveys and Survey Club.

Ruth’s ebook is hands down the best blogging ebook I’ve ever read. I cannot recommend it highly enough and will be telling every new and seasoned blogger I know to get a copy! This ebook is comprehensive, but not overwhelming, and packed with amazing information. And I don’t say that lightly. You see, by implementing the Pinterest strategies that Ruth suggests in her ebook, I have increased my site traffic by over 500,000 unique visitors per month. For real. Ruth is brilliant! What more can I say?!

Hi, thanks for this very helpful post! Is it possible to register a domain even if you don’t plan on using it immediately? Basically just ensuring that you get the domain name that you want (if possible). Also, if I’m planning to blog on varying topics what would you recommend to do as far as a name? Do you think it’s imperative that the name coincides with the topic? I only ask because I’ve seen fashion/beauty blogs where their names have nothing to do with fashion or beauty. I’m sooo stuck on the name I can’t move to the next steps! Ugh!

There’s also Quora—a question and answer site that lets anyone respond to user’s queries. One tactic I’ve used is to search for relevant topics in my niche and then answer questions I’ve already written about on my blog (like this Quora answer about how to get blog traffic that's received hundreds of upvotes and thousands of views_ . This way I know I’m giving them good value and can even link back to the full post on my blog.

Hey Isabel. I would definitely create your blog in your native language if that is the one that you write better in. If your English grammar isn’t impeccable, you will have a hard time getting a loyal audience of English speakers. A blog written in English has the potential for a larger audience, but a blog in your native language will have less competition and the potential for a far more LOYAL audience. I hope that helps!
No blogging for profit book has made the difference to me and my blog like this one. If you only read ONE of these subject books – LET IT BE THIS BOOK!!! After finishing the book, my blog is totally getting revamped, I have the excitement for it again, and now my whole direction has changed to not only help me become more profitable, but also for me to get back to ENJOYING what I do, which is really the best part!”
Through my affiliate link, you can secure hosting for as little as $2.95 a month. But you have to purchase the 36-month package, which would be $106.20 — but this includes a free domain name. You can use a free theme, but I highly suggest purchasing one, for $39 – $130. You can buy a custom logo design on Fiverr for $5, and you can use Sendinblue for email marketing which is free for a certain number of email subscribers. All in all, it shouldn’t cost you any more than $150.20 – $241.20 (plus tax).

Thanks for this really easy-to-follow guide, it was a great help installing my blog. However, I have the same problem as Ellen above. I set up my domain name successfully and installed WordPress. Got an e-mail saying that the WordPress install was successful (as shown in your guide). But when I want to log in to my admin URL it says that the website is not available! and it’s been like that for the last 2 days. Do you know what to do?

Selling private ads can come in the form of banners, buttons, or links. You can even make money writing sponsored posts where you write about or give a review of an advertiser’s product or service. Another option is to write an underwritten post or series, which is where you can write about any topic, but the advertiser pays for a “Brought to you by” mention in the content.